A wide variety of different sealing mechanisms are used to limit backflow of blood or other fluids from a patient during certain treatments or diagnostic procedures. In a typical scenario, a clinician controls such a mechanism to alternately block or open a conduit extending from outside the patient into an intraluminal space such as a vein or artery. Other mechanisms include a self-sealing valve through which a medical device is passed, automatically forming a seal. Transluminal devices such as wire guides and catheters may be passed through such a conduit when open, and backflow of blood or another fluid can be prevented when the conduit is closed. Since it is often necessary for transluminal devices to reside within the fluid conduit when a seal is established, many such mechanisms are engineered to fluidly seal around a wire guide, catheter, or the like.
One known manually operable design employs a push/pull sleeve or tube, which can be advanced through the center of a resilient gasket or the like positioned in the housing to open the gasket and provide a passage for introducing a medical device into the patient. Other manually operable designs employ a rotating mechanism which adjusts a different type of gasket between an open configuration and closed configuration, also sealing about a medical device. Known strategies of these general types have various drawbacks.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,109 to Mollenauer et al. is directed to an adjustable valve having a radially compressible sealing body. Mollenauer et al. teach an adjustable surgical valve having a sealing body with an axial passage extending through it, a toroidal body axially aligned with the sealing body, and a device that selectively changes the relative axial positions of the sealing body and the toroidal body. Mating surfaces of the sealing body and the toroidal body radially compress the axial passage of the sealing body when relative axial positions of the sealing body and the toroidal body are changed. This apparently causes the axial passage to seal with an instrument inserted through it, or seal with itself. The design set forth in Mollenauer et al. may have achieved its stated purposes, but appears relatively complex and likely expensive to manufacture.